2013 MLB Regular Season running thread

Writing to your audience means endless feature stories about generally boring Type A athletes. Bless you if you want that life.

I hate writing about baseball so much, because an honest story about 90% of the time would be "and team A got luckier than team B on that day, ever so slightly shaded by small differences in talent."

But I can't write that, so I grit my teeth and write that some guy just really wanted to come through in the clutch situation and expertly guided his ground ball between third and SS because that's what clutch winners do.

 

This is true. We didn't. Today's conventional wisdom is tomorrow's myth.

Verducci's column questioning the virtue of "seeing a lot of pitches" is a case in point this week.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/20130423/joey-votto-jayson-werth-taking-pitches/

 

Spare me this "lack of intelligence" talk. I know what I'm talking about. Mike Trout was a more valuable player than Miggy last year. Period.

 

I don't think they should be used to impress anyone, but to inform them. And I agree that they shouldn't be overused, but I do think they have their place, and also agree that if they are not used much, they should be explained in some way when they do appear. Also, over time, by using them every so often, your everyday readers who didn't understand them previously would hopefully come to understand them.

Lastly, I would guess more people understand advanced statistics than you assume. Most people in any type of remotely competitive fantasy baseball league utilize them to prepare for their drafts. There are millions of people playing fantasy baseball.

 

If you want to argue Strawberry, Murphy or Eric Davis, I'll listen. But if you're saying Ozzie, then go get an STD from Herpes.

 

Jack Clark.

Or any of the guys you mentiond. But the top two vote-getters that year? Um, no.

 

Incorporating advanced statistics is the key, without getting rid of what's out there. I had a fantasy league that used OBP and another one that did OPS. The more traditional stats are useful...maybe some are less important when determining the value of a player's next contract, but that doesn't make stats like RBIs less important in terms of a player's accomplishments.

 

Wow.

 

Why won't it help the case? Because I know what I'm talking about? These newfangled statistics CREATE better knowledge of the game and the history of the game. They can be used on players throughout history and to compare today's stars with past generations. They really are quite useful.

 

Every time you open your browser you show your lack of intelligence.

 

I'm not in favor of using OBP in fantasy leagues. Anything that makes Adam Dunn into a top 25 player is not something with which I am down.